| Motif | Name | Description |
| a14 | Eclipses: relations between the Sun and the Moon | Coming together of the Sun and the Moon is the reason of their eclipses |
| a28 | The smart Sun and the unwise Moon | The Sun and the Moon are men. The unwise Moon tries to repeat dangerous tricks of the Sun but fails to do it successfully |
| a35 | Spots on the lunar disc | Dark spots on the lunar disc are dirt, blood, paint, traces of beating, burning, scratching, etc. on the Moon person's body or face (Kiliwa: spots on the Sun) and do not form any particular figure |
| a36 | The immortal Moon | The Moon, unlike people, revives or rejuvenates every month; or those who live in the Moon are immortal; or the Moon makes decision if people should die forever or regularly revive |
| a36a | The immortal Sun | The Sun, unlike people, is immortal; is responsible for the mortal nature of humans |
| a5 | The Sun and the Moon are males | The Moon is male, the Sun is also male or (much more rare) asexual |
| b13a | Stream follows person | A stream of water (with a monster in it) pursues person who tries to escape from it |
| b1f | Two brothers: a winner and a failure | Two brothers (companions) live In the epoch of the creation. One of them is smart and selfconfident, another is weak and makes mistakes. They are not enemies and demonstrate their qualities in two or more episodes |
| b20 | Expedition to the upper world | People regularly ascend to the sky for hunting, fishing or gathering; do not give honey, fish or proper meat to the old person remained below; she or he makes their return impossible, they remain in the sky |
| b21 | Destruction of the world tree | People ascend the tree to hunt, fish, or gather food in the sky. The tree is destroyed, people fall to earth or remain in the upper world |
| b22 | Offended person destroys the tree | People who have climbed up a tree do not share food with a person who remained below. He or she revenges on them destroying the tree. The events have cosmic dimensions |
| b26 | Man joins wild animals | Person who follows the wild animals turns into one of them or into their master |
| b27 | Variants of transformations | Persons ponders over what object, feature, or creature it would be appropriate for him or her to turn into. When the choice is made, the persons transforms himself or herself |
| b2a | The female earth | The earth is a female person (alone or together with a male person); she is female being or associated with a woman |
| b36 | Creatures acquire their physical traits | Birds, fish, reptiles, mammals intentionally or by chance are smeared with colorful substances or divide among themselves parts of somebody's body thus acquiring their present characteristics |
| b37 | Creatures are made appear as they are now | Person decorates different birds (rare: fish), share fat between anomals. Since then, the corresponding species acquire present characteristics |
| b3b | Earth grows big | Original earth was small and later increased in size or the fertile soil grew from a small amount of original substance |
| b77 | Primeval sky close to earth | Originally the sky was close to the earth, then it has risen up |
| b82 | The white raven | Raven or other carrion-eating bird of dark color and a similar size was originally white |
| b9 | Water in the tree trunk | There is enormous amount of water inside a trunk of a tree or a tree turns into water |
| c1 | The collapse of the sky | Catastropic displacement of layers of the univers in the past or in the future is mentioned. Among variants (sometimes combined):
the sky fell on the earth; the earth (the underworld) and the sky interchanged their positions; the earth turned upside down; the layers of the universe collapsed in one after another; they will change their place during the future cataclysm
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| c17 | Fire pit for the people | The men of primeval community destroy most of the people and/or themselves in a fire pit or on the bonfire |
| c34 | The deluge because of a wounded creature | Killing (injuring, offending) of some cruature (usually related to water) triggers deluge |
| c5a | Bird-scouts | Birds or humans later changed to birds are sent to explore the earth (is it dry, are any survivals, to investigate why smoke rises to the sky, etc.) or to bring some soil to make the land that would be good for living |
| d1b | Male spirit of fire | The fire is personified as an elder man (alone or with his wife, mistress of fire) |
| d4a | Theft of fire | Fire is stolen from its original owner or brought back to the people from somebody who had stolen it before |
| d4j | Rabbit obtains fire | Fire owner, stealer, or stealer's companion is a rabbit, a hare or (among the Ofaie) a guinea pig |
| d4o | Fire stealer pretends to be wet and cold | To steal fire from its owner, person pretends to be wet or cold and is granted permission to sit near the fireplace. In a proper moment the stealer carries the fire away and brings it to people |
| d5 | Woman as the owner of the fire | Female person is the owner or inventor (but not the personification) of the fire |
| e13a | Sacred knowledge from under the water | Sacred knowledge, objects and rituals are initially obtained from the denizens of the underwater world |
| e14a | Masks represent the killed demons | People prepare ritual costumes and masks coping the features from the real demons whom they have killed |
| e25 | Arachne (the spider-weaver) | The art of weaving people get from a spider or from a person who turns into spider afterwards; a spider is weaving for people |
| e32 | People born from trees | First people are born by trees or come out of a tree, flower, reed |
| e5a | Mankind ascends from the underworld | The first people (or only the first men or the first women) are not created but come to earth from the underworld (from a cave) or from a small enclosure under the earth or on its surface (tree trunk, rock, gourd, etc.). Many people of both sexes and of different ages or people and different species of animals come out together |
| f18a | The long penis | Penis is so long that he can turn it round his waist or send into a woman who is at a long distance from him. (Only texts considered to describe real events and beings and not anecdotes are included) |
| f20 | A strong embrace | Man and woman embrace each other forever or for a long time |
| f23 | Origin of menses: sexual act | Women menstruate because they bled in primeval time after the first defloration |
| f29 | Girl sits on the ground | A girl or young woman who is usually occupied with domestic work (is cooking, weaving, etc.) sits on the ground and copulates with a penis-like creature that crawls from below into her vagina |
| f30 | Snake paramour | A woman or a girl takes a snake, an eel (i.e. Pacific snake-eel), a lizard, or a worm for husband or paramour. People kill or badly injure him, the woman and/or her progeny or the woman herself is transformed into snake. Cf. motif k76b: the snake-husband becomes and remains a handsome man |
| f33 | Water creature paramour | Certain woman or a group of women take for paramour a big water animal (caiman, otter, sea-lion, whale, anaconda; rare: water bird, crab), water spirit or monster. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and/or (sometimes) the woman |
| f34 | Land animal paramour | Certain woman or a group of women takes for a paramour a big land animal. Husbands, brothers or (adoptive) children kill or maim paramour and (sometimes) the woman |
| f34b | The paramour is not a human being | A girl (a woman, a group of women) intentionally takes a penis-being, a snake, an eel, a lizard, a worm, a big water animal or water monster or a big terrestrial mammal for paramour. People kill or maim the paramour, the woman and/or her progeny or she is transformed herself into an animal. She is blamed for her behavior |
| f35 | Feeding with the paramour’s meat | Person feeds another with the meat of his or her sexual partner who cooks or eats it without knowing whose meat it is |
| f35a | Feeding with the kin’s meat | Person does not know that he or she eats or cooks the meat of the member of his or her household (blood relation, more rare a spouse or servant) or serves it to his or her friends, or uses her or his bones for everyday needs, or slowly kills him ort her |
| f36 | Sons kill paramour | The (adoptive) children or grandchildren and not person's spouse or brother kill the paramour of their (step)mother or father |
| f38 | Women and sacred knowledge | Women were possessors of the sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or ritual objects which are now taboo for them or they made attempts to acquire such a knowledge or objects |
| f41 | The men kill the women | The men of primeval community kill the women because of their unsocial behavior |
| f46 | One for all | In the beginning of time two or more men (animal people) have only one woman |
| f46a | Woman in a tree | Men (animal people) discover a woman in a tree and copulate with her there |
| f47 | Pieces of flesh turn to people | A living creature or a lump of alive flesh is cut into pieces which are diepersed around. After some time every piece turns into human being |
| f47a | Men use pieces of woman’s flesh | Every man uses for copulation certain part of an only woman or takes a part of her body after it was cut into pieces |
| f47b | New people on the old place | To create the new people (new women) instead of those who were destructed, person puts down in every empty hut (hearth, hammock) something (feathers, pieces of flesh) from which new people (new women) emerge |
| f48 | Why women are different | Different women are not similar physically because pieces of the first woman's flesh distributed between men were of unequal quality or because males who copulated with her had different nature |
| f55 | What do you want? | A woman cannot understand what does her partner want. She points at, names or suggests different things. At last she points at, names or exposes her genitals. This is the right answer |
| f56 | Watching vagina triggers incest | A man or boy thinks about incest when he gets to see his daughter(-in-law)'s, sister's, or mother(in-law)'s vagina |
| f86 | Conditional signal | Person summons with a certain signal a non-human being (usually his or her sexual partner or his or her protégé). Another person spies, uses the same signal or pronounces the same words and kills the being who comes to him (or uses this being sexually himself) |
| f9 | A dangerous woman | For different reasons, sexual contact with a woman is deadly dangerous for a man |
| f9b | Piranha in vagina | Biting piranha is in woman's genitals |
| g26 | Swallowed food: saved for people | Food products were swallowed or hidden in person's mouth. Thanks to this people got them |
| g6 | Primeval tree | One of the trees is the principal, original one (emerged before all the other; ancestor of wild or cultivated plants; ocean or rivers inside it; world axis; higher than all the others; overshadows sky) |
| h10 | Stone sinks, stick floats | People are mortal because stone thrown into the water sank. They have missed a chance to be like wood or other organic matter that floated |
| h20 | Fish disperse in the world | All the fish or (rare) shellfish) was concentrated in one place. Certain person lets it lose or puts it into the rivers or sea |
| h21a | Not to kill a big fish | |
| h28 | Plagues from the body of a person or creature | Killed and destroyed (often burned) person or creature (usually ogre, fierce animal, powerful shaman) turns into a multitude of biting insects or into other small molesting creatures |
| h32b | Superfertility lost: a maltreated child | A small girl or boy who is a child of a deity comes to live with humans. Thanks to that, food or other resources become easily available. The child is maltreated, returns to its own world, human life becomes difficult and scanty |
| h37 | Magic device lost by a failure | Magic object, device that makes hunting or fishing easy gets into possession of a person who is unable to operate it or abuses it. The device kills or injures the failure himself, other people and/or disappears |
| h47 | Offended sky or earth | The sky (or the earth) is offended by people’s behavior in respect to it and reacts accordingly (e.g. rises higher than it was before) |
| h7g1 | Death is more fair and rich than God | Person (who is usually in search of the godgather for the newborn child) rejects God (saints) and devil but accepts Death who is more fair (or rich) |
| i1 | The thunderbirds | Creatures that produce rain and/or thunderstorms are birds or anthropomorphic beings with wings; or (rare) some or all birds are connected with thunder, lightning or rain though Thunder is not a bird |
| i100 | The Pleiades are girls | The Pleiades are a group of girls or women (with children) |
| i100b | The Pleiades are a group of people | The Pleiades are any people (of any ages and sex, combined data of i99-i100a) |
| i10a | Colored layers of the sky | Different sky levels or different categories of clouds have different colors |
| i14 | No-anus people | Person or creature has no anus opening |
| i17 | Body anomalies of inhabitants of a distant land | Beings without mouth, anus, genitals, whose women do not know how to give birth live in the underworld, in the sky, or in a far-away land |
| i4a | Thunder in trouble: falls to earth | Thunder falls to earth, cannot return to the sky. Usually a human person helps him to do it |
| i72 | Stars are people | Stars are people, ghosts, anthropomorphic beings (interpretations of unique star objects like Venus or Polaris as persons not considered) |
| i82b | Venus is female | Morning and/or Evening Star is a female personage |
| i82c | Venus is the Moon’s wife | Venus or some other bright star seen near the eastern or western horizon is female and wife of the Moon |
| i85c1 | The rain stored in the sky | In the sky there is a special container (vessel, skin, box, etc.) for storing the rain |
| j1 | The vengeful heroes | Persons avenge the death of their father, mother or other relatives who are one (rare two) generations older than they |
| j30 | Parents’ remains | Before the hero destroys the antagonists or escapes from them, he finds or receives the remains or possessions that belonged to the antagonists' victim |
| j4 | Revenge for the death of the male relatives | Heroes avenge the murder or captivity of the male relatives: (grand)father, uncles, or the elder relatives in general, the loss of the males being the most traumatic |
| j46 | Enemy drowns | Antagonist perishes falling into the water or trying to cross a water body |
| j52 | Two animal persons and their children | A person (usually zoomorphic and female) treacherously kills her (his) companion. The victim's children revenge on the murderer killing her own children |
| j53a1 | A way of the revenge: to lure into the smoke and fire | The victim’s children kill the murderer’s children luring them in a place where the die of smoke or heath |
| j58 | The arrow ladder | Persons shoot arrows (darts) which hit each other’s end forming a chain (rope, ladder). Persons climb by this chain to the sky or (rare) across an obstacle |
| j58b | The sky door | Chain of arrows is used to pull or push the sky or the Sun lower or higher or to break a hole in the sky |
| j59 | Following arrow to get to the sky | To climb to the sky, person must first to shoot an arrow that reaches the sky and sticks to it |
| k10 | Fight with the monstrous bird | Monstrous bird (giant bat) predates on humans. Heroes fight with it |
| k102a2 | Conflict between mother and son | Mother tries to kill her son (children) because he interferes with her love affair
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| k10i | A tree that opens its trunk | A tree opens its trunk to provide a refuge for a hero pursued by the monstrous bird. When the bird follows the hero the tree crushes it squeezing its trunk again |
| k13a | Person with cut off leg ascends to the sky | Person's leg (rare: both legs) is cut, torn, bitten off, injured. He (rare: she) ascends to the sky: to the Moon; turns into the Moon, Sun, star, constellation; blood from the injured leg makes the sky red |
| k13d | Leg hangs in the sky | A group of boys gets to the sky. The leg of the last one is cut or torn off |
| k17 | The ornitomorphic suitor | An ornitomorphic hero impregnates a girl magically or imperceptibly for her |
| k18 | Infant picks out his unknown father | A boy is born whose father or (rare) mother is unknown. He himself points at his parent who as a rule occupies the lowest social position. Usually many men (women) come together and everyone hopes that the boy points at him (her) |
| k19a | Star-wife | A man maries a star-woman |
| k19c | Non-human lover in man’s bed or bag | A man brings home a small being with whom he makes love at night. His mother, sister or wife discovers his non-human lover in his bed or bag |
| k2 | The destroyed ladder | Hero climbs up (e.g. to a tree) or down (e.g. into a deep cave) by ladder, rope, from branch to branch, etc. The rope etc. breaks or is intentionally destroyed and the hero cannot return to the ground. (All cases of motif K2A, besides the Koreans, also contain motif K2) |
| k20 | Wish for star-husband or wife realized | A human person admires a star or (rare) the Moon in the sky, expresses desire to marry it or (rare) to get a star-object. Star descends to him or to her or takes him or her to the sky |
| k25 | Magic wife | A man consciously marries a woman related to the non-human world |
| k87 | Marriage with an animal creates problems | A woman becomes the wife of an animal (rare: other non-human being). Her husband cares for her but ultimately the animal, the woman, her children or her relations are killed, she turns into an animal herself, animals and humans become enemies, etc. |
| k8c | Jonah: swallowed by terrestrial animal | Person gets into the belly of ground animal or bird. He kills it from the inside and/or returns to earth by himself (i.e. not extracted by other people) |
| l15a | Vulnerable place on the body | The only vulnerable spot is near the surface of person’s or creature’s body and not in his inner organs |
| l15a1 | Achilles' heel | Vulnerable place on the body of a person or creature is on his or her foot (toe, heel, sole, ankle) |
| l20 | Eater of the raw meat | Two persons hunt or fish. One of them is or becomes a cannibal. He or she reveals his or her nature eating the quarry raw |
| l20a | Eater of parrots | A man climbs a tree, throws down bird nestlings to a woman. She eats them raw and then kills or tries to kill the man |
| l21 | Cannibal’s attention diverted | A cannibal under a tree plans to eat up a man who has climbed the tree. The man throws down and afar his pray or some object and escapes while the cannibal rushes to this object or is eating the pray |
| l26 | Massacre of the initiated boys | During the (first) initiation supernatural beings teach boys the rituals and kill them for breaking rules related to consumption and distribution of food |
| l26a | Massacre of the spirits | During the (first) initiation the men kill the supernaturals (and since then reproduce their appearance and/or voices during the male rituals) |
| l36 | Woman attacks man who climbs a tree | When a man climbs a tree (escaping from persecutor; to get bird nestlings, honey, fruits, etc.), his wife (rare: her brother) kills, injures him or turns into demonic creature who pursues him |
| l61 | Endocannibal | Person devours his or her own flesh or disembowels himself or herself |
| l70 | Fruit falls and kills | Person or animal is killed or injured with a heavy object dropped from a tree (or rock, etc.). The person or the animal knows that the objects will fall but has falls ideas about its character and weight |
| l72 | The obstacle flight | Running away from a dangerous being, person throws small objects behind him or her which turn into mighty obstacles on the way of the pursuer |
| l82 | The burned off foot | Intentionally or not, a man burns his foot or his whole body in a fire, then turns into demon |
| l87 | Taste of blood | Unintentionally, person gets to taste his or her own blood or flesh, likes the taste, turns into a cannibal |
| l9 | Sharp body members | Body members of a person has the form of cutting or piercing weapon |
| l9a | Sharp leg | Person's leg is injured intentionally or by chance. The loss of one leg does not bother him. He uses the sharpened bone as a thrust weapon |
| m11 | The unclean food | Person feeds others a food that is extracted from his, hers or somebody else’ body or is polluted by body extractions not informing about the source of the food |
| m19 | The bait-person | Person ties another one (usually a child) to a fishing line to use him as a bait or orders the tied one to catch fish with his hands |
| m23 | Mock plea | Person or creature pretends to be afraid of a particular sort of treatment that really cannot do him any harm |
| m29b | Trickster-fox, jackal or coyote | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is fox, jackal or coyote |
| m29o | Trickster is a monkey | In episodes related to deception, absurd, obscene or anti-social behavior the protagonist is a monkey |
| m29w | Jaguar (ocelote, puma) is a failure | Because of its stupidity and unsocial behavior, the jaguar (ocelote, puma) suffers a reverse, is injured or dies |
| m5 | Provoked insult | Being in a situation when his life depends on a good will of a demon or animal, person either resists or does not resist the temptation to insult or to beat, bite, etc. the latter |
| m51 | Meat in a tree | One of two animal-persons kills game. In the absence of the stronger one, the weaker one hides the meat to eat it alone later |
| m70 | An elder person poisons a younger one with intestinal gas | Old person tricks a young man into smelling her or his intestinal gas |
| m70a | Old woman is pierced through | An old woman defecates or breaks wind over a man. He kills her inserting a cutting object into her anus or vagina |
| m75 | Valuables taken off the vultures | Person attracts and catches the carrion-eaters (usually some birds) and thanks to this obtains valuables retrieves valuables (fire, woman, animals, etc.) |